User Comments - changye
changye
Posted on: Fortunate Cookies
June 17, 2008 at 11:54 AMHi billm,
Thanks for the good “bed” time story. Anyway, it looks like how to read the fortune “properly” is beyond my English ability. It must be more difficult to read than TIME magazine.
Posted on: Regional Accents Part II
June 17, 2008 at 5:58 AMHi pulosm,
＞ When it was chosen as China's official language
＞ and this was a battle that Cantonese
＞ came close to winning
Thanks a lot for your informative comments, which have just reminded me of an interesting episode about (or combat over) Standard Chinese I read before. In 1913, a lot of scholars gathered from all over China to discuss the standardization of Chinese characters pronunciation. The name of the working group was 读音统一会.
Some of the top issues at the meeting were 入声 (entering tones) and 浊音 (voiced consonants), both of which had already disappeared in most northern dialects, including 北京话. The scholars came from southern China, who held the majority at the meeting then, naturally opposed strongly to adopting northern pronunciations as a standard.
Finally, the standard pronunciations were determined by MAJORITY VOTE! How democratic! And fortunately enough for 北京话, the vote was conducted on “one-province one-vote” basis, which was a strong suggestion by the vice-chairman of the meeting who was from 河北省. I believe that Cantonese put up a good fight in the lost “battle.”
Posted on: Fortunate Cookies
June 17, 2008 at 3:16 AMHi billm,
＞ Most interesting fortune:
＞ "You have many friends due to your flexible nature --"
＞ Not sure what it meant.
Ironically enough, most Asian people who learn English probably understand well what the fortune means, simply because they, me included, often write such funny English! Actually, I wouldn’t notice that the sentence is funny, unless you said “not sure what it meant.” What the fortune "wants to tell you" should be “you can make a lot of friends because of your sociable personality” or something like that, though I’m not so sure if this English makes sense for natives!
Posted on: 禁塑令
June 17, 2008 at 2:35 AM共产主义有一个好处，那就是什么事情都很快。就像这次”禁塑令”的迅速出台那样，共产党领导人一旦决定下来要做，政府就一定迅速施行法律，贯彻落实有关规定。特别是改革开放非常快，法律规定变得快，动迁拆迁蛮快，污染速度更快，经济发展当然快。在民主主义国家需要研究十年的难题，在中国一年就能作出结论。问题是有时有些事情的进展速度过份地快，解决问题远远跟不上问题发生的速度。
Posted on: Who is that?
June 15, 2008 at 1:24 PMHi michele,
I really love your analysis on 大(十八)变！I couldn’t come up with this idea. It’s very interesting. Actually, some Chinese words often separate, for example, the word 结婚 (jie2 hun1, marry) changes this way；结了三次婚 (married three times). And in this case, the verb 结婚 has the structure “结 (V) ＋ 婚 (O)”.
How about 大变 (da4 bian4)？I’m afraid this word doesn’t have “V + O” structure. Probably it is translated as “change drastically” and its structure is “adverb (大) + verb (变)”. As far as I know, this type of Chinese verbs don’t separate like 结婚, perhaps. Let me try to translate 女大十八变 into modern Chinese.
女孩子长到十八岁就变漂亮。
女孩子长大时有十八次的变化。
I believe that a lot of Chinese people would agree with your translation "is to be expected a big change when eighteen years old is reached". Anyway, there seems to be still no accepted interpretation for this famous saying in China.
Posted on: 室内装修
June 15, 2008 at 12:32 PMThe Chinese translations of "ethnocentrism" should be 民族中心主义 or 种族中心主义. 种族偏见 migh be an equivalent of "racism". As for "politically correct", I think that just saying 公正 would be OK.
Posted on: Who is that?
June 15, 2008 at 11:32 AMHere is a well-known Chinese saying 女大十八变 (nv3 da4 shi2 ba1 bian4), which means “As a girl grows, her appearance and personality undergo a significant change.” Some people say 十八 suggests “to change eighteen times”, and others say “to change until eighteen years old.”
Anyway, its basic connotation is the same, which usually hints “a girl becomes beautiful when she grows up.” Do you think so? And as far as my female dog concerns, I must say this saying contains a truth. She has become very chubby (and pretty) with growth and is still changing..........
Posted on: 室内装修
June 15, 2008 at 9:12 AMReading today’s lesson intro just reminds me of a well-known Chinese saying (俗语), which happens to be one of my chubby dog’s favorite sayings. I’m always telling my dog that my bed is NOT her 狗窝!
金窝银窝不如自己的狗窝。There is no place like home.
Posted on: 室内装修
June 15, 2008 at 8:33 AMHi dave,
Joking aside, I seriously recommend you take a look at some “scandalous” web pages on the Internet in China. You can easily find them by googling for proper keywords in Chinese. Judging from your profile, I believe that your command of Mandarin is good enough to read them with the help of dictionaries. Curiosity is always one of the most important impetuses for making progress in learning languages. Good luck.
Posted on: Missing Luggage
June 17, 2008 at 12:09 PMA suitcase
行李箱 (xing2 li3 xiang1)
旅行箱 (lv3 xing2 xiang1)